Elliott C. "Eeyore" Evans, wrote:

First off, the tourney was delayed for some time as two participants
wished to compete in the Falling tournament that had been scheduled
concurrently. Jake was willing to postpone the tournament since he was
one of the two people. =^>

Six people competed in the tournament, five experienced competitors
and one dark horse. One competitor from last year showed up too late to
compete, but it was good to see him (Hi JazzFish!). Andy "Zarf" Plotkin
was our erstwhile and highly skilled judge. We played six Ice-off games,
each player participating in four of them. Ratings for the Ice-offs were
calculated based on each player's best three scores.

The snowball opening is basically dead. If you, like me, tend to rely
on the snowball to get an early fortress, you will find it very
difficult to get anywhere in the tournament finals these days. A
snowball or two would sometimes develop later in the game, but not
usually at the very beginning.

I don't remember too much about the Ice-offs. I did notice a couple
of strangers getting very interested in the game. Maybe next year we
should run some demos or something. You can see in the score sheet that
coming out of the Ice-offs, Andy already had a clear intention of
dominating this tournament.

In one finals game, John "Dr. Cool" Cooper and Andy "The Emperor"
Looney developed a new strategy for dealing with Jake Davenport's
shotgun strategy. This strategy involves "sharing the pain." In short,
all attacks made on shotgun pieces were cooperative attacks involving
pieces of two colors. This cooperative attacking yielded a board
situation of "or we will all go down together." If Jake were to get a
prisoner, the pain of the subsequent restructuring would be shared among
those participating.

In another game, I saw Jake counting up John's pieces, and realized
that if I didn't do something quickly, John was going to be put in the
Icehouse. So, I did the only thing I could do; I took a prisoner of
John's color (Red, BTW) off my stash pad and played it stealthily about
an inch to the right of my stash pad. Jake's subsequent call of
"Icehouse" was incorrect, forcing him to give away the last piece from
his stash pad (a 1-pointer).

In that same game (I think, the second one of the finals) that piece
became the last piece on Andy's stash pad near the end of the game. I
had a few pieces left, so I played them quickly to minmize the impact he
could have with that prisoner. (you can't restructure with the final
piece of the game, because as soon as it's played, the game is over.)
Reading the board, I was going to win the game by one point (and
consequently the tournament) and there was nothing Andy could do.
Nothing, that is, except tip-block a red 3-pointer that was attacking
one of his 3-pointers. I was participating in that attack with a green
1-pointer, so that single action squandered 3-points of red, one point
of green, one point of yellow, and saved three points of blue. Andy won
that game. It was a beautiful thing.

In the last game of the finals. Things didn't go very well for me. I
failed to get a fortress early, since the snowball failed to develop
sufficiently. After several thwarted attempts to get a fortress, I was
down to seven pieces on my stash pad, and looking for something to do. I
could have called "Icehouse" on myself, but I needed to win the game if
I wanted to win the tournament. Eventually, I noticed Jake counting
pieces on my stash pad and then judging my position on the board. I
braced myself for the call, but it never came. *Shrug*. A minute or two
later, Dr. Cool did the same counting thing, and called me into the
Icehouse, sealing the tomb door on my hopes. It turns out that Jake
thought "7" was the stash limit (it's "8"). Jake went on to win the game
anyway, but nobody's overall performance was anywhere near Andy's.

After the tournament, a secret ballot was taken of the six
participants to determine the CTI and I was chosen. I thank everybody
who voted for me. Hey, I can't be too disappointed at not winning if
there's this kind of consolation.

Then, Andy lent all of us Hawaiian shirts and we went to dinner at a
historic (no, really, it's a historic landmark) Polynesian restaurant. I
got a drink that came in a skull mug, and later used a LONG straw to
drink from the flaming "Mystery
Bowl".

It was a good day.

Andrew "Zarf" Plotkin wrote:

Well, I suppose I should write a little more. (If only because I had
to concentrate on nine straight games of Icehouse, which is more than
anyone else at the tournament. :-)

First point: judging style.

I went with the policy of not calling an illegal move until the piece
was actually played -- fingers off the piece. For example, there were
two meltdown situations in the tournament. In one, I watched the
offending offensive piece being positioned -- which took a while -- and
I called "meltdown" as soon as the player let go. In the other, another
player called it during positioning, before the move was complete, so I
never said anything at all.

(Actually the latter case happened earlier in the tournament.)

Similarly, if someone was confused enough to play an attacker in a
squandered position, I wouldn't call it until the piece was placed (and
therefore stuck there.) (Of course this is a rarer mistake even than
melting down.)

Anyone object to this? Is this how judging was done in the early
tournaments?

Elliott C. Evans wrote:

In another game, I saw Jake counting up John's pieces, and
realized that if I didn't do something quickly, John was going to be put
in the Icehouse. So, I did the only thing I could do; I took a prisoner
of John's color (Red, BTW) off my stash pad and played it stealthily
about an inch to the right of my stash pad. Jake's subsequent call of
"Icehouse" was incorrect, forcing him to give away the last piece from
his stash pad (a 1-pointer).

This thought (and action) took my notice. If you see player A about
to put B in the icehouse, it may be reasonable to call "icehouse" first,
and snag the prisoners yourself. On the other hand, it may be worth
*saving* B -- by this means or some other -- possibly tricking A into a
false "icehouse" call.

The choice is obviously down to individual play style. Eeyore, you
wanna comment on why you decided as you did? Just because Jake, with a
single piece on his stash, was unusually vulnerable to the
false-icehouse penalty?

At the very least, the *possibility* of this strategy forces
aggressive icehousers to pay more attention.

Elliott C. "Eeyore" Evans, wrote:

Andrew Plotkin wrote:

I went with the policy of not calling an illegal move until the
piece was actually played -- fingers off the piece.

Until the fingers are removed, the piece is not played (at all), so
it cannot be "played illegally" until the fingers are removed.

Similarly, if someone was confused enough to play an
attacker in a squandered position, I wouldn't call it until the piece
was placed.

Actually, unless you're asked to make a floss call, you're under no
obligation to say anything until scoring.

Is this how judging was done in the early
tournaments?

As I recall them, yes. I remember that at least once, a judge refused
to make a call on the legality of an attack until the attacker was
officially "played".

The choice is obviously down to individual play style.
Eeyore, you wanna comment on why you decided as you did? Just because
Jake, with a single piece on his stash, was unusually vulnerable to the
false-icehouse penalty?

I must admit that it never occurred to me to do anything other than
what I did. Foolish, actually. I should have called "Icehouse" on John
myself and used the prisoners to assure my victory. Maybe there was some
reason I didn't, but I can't figure what it might have been. Maybe John
had no pieces left on his stash pad?

I did get a big hug from John for saving him from the Icehouse. Fat
lot of good it did me later, though, when he called "Icehouse" on *me*.
=^&gt

Jacob Davenport wrote:

John had a bunch of pieces on his pad, or I wouldn't have bothered to
put him in the icehouse. I assumed that you didn't call icehouse
yourself because you weren't the one working towards putting him in the
icehouse. As such, you couldn't call icehouse at the moment I attacked
his last defender (or what I thought was his last defender) as well as I
could.

I've often worried that I would spend half my pieces attacking an
opponent to toss him in the icehouse, just to have someone else come
along and call icehouse right before I did. I need not worry, since I
can call it the instant I remove my finger from my last attacker. An
opponent might call it too early, and probably would call it too late,
if they tried to steal my attempt.

You could have been really sneaky by icing the prisoner that you had
played so secretly, and then call icehouse yourself. That would be a
real "ice pirate" move.